Allow me to paint a picture for you: It’s 4:15am. You are asleep. Everyone is asleep. You hear shuffling. Your door creaks open {okay, so maybe your door doesn’t creak. Lucky!} A small person begins inundating you with requests at full, normal conversational volume: “Pancakes please Mom;” “Hi Dad;” “I want to read Hop on Pop;” “I want to play Memory!” Everyone is no longer asleep: you sigh and hope the clock is wrong; the baby awakens, excited to converse with her sister; husband groans and mutters things you hope toddler does not repeat. Chaos ensues. Thank goodness she can’t yet reach the light switch.
Until two weeks ago, the above story {nightmare?} was a recurrent early morning occurrence. Our career 12-hour-per-night sleeper transitioned all of a sudden into an early riser. It started with a move from 7:30am to 6:30.. then 6… 5… {it got uglier}.. and then 4am. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that this behavior was disruptive to the sleep of the rest of the family. Some {great} friends and I were discussing this business of early rising a few weeks ago, and I was somewhat relieved to hear that it is seemingly common. So common, in fact, that companies market special clocks to serve as a sort of toddler alarm clock: they have areas that light up with a moon and stars when it is time for sleep, and a sun when it is time to be awake and can also eventually be used to teach children how to read a clock. Some have games.. music.. the ability to record your own messages.. The principle is great, and I came awfully close to clicking “buy now,” but something was nagging me. As my house slowly but surely is transformed into a small toy store, I realized that we have already accumulated at least three time-telling puzzles, games, et cetera. Cue the brainstorming: the purpose of these toddler alarm clocks is a visual cue that it is time to get up. What else could serve that purpose? As it turned out, the answer cost less than $10 and was already sitting in my utility cabinet. What, pray tell, was this miraculous alternative?
An Indoor Appliance Timer
Greetings from a land of increased sleep for all! Over the past week we have {somewhat intensely} implemented some sleep behavior modifications and yielded some pretty excellent results.
I simply hooked up her bedroom lamp to an indoor appliance timer and placed the lamp out of her reach. It is set to turn on at 7am. We explained that if she wakes up and the light is off, she should stay in bed until the light comes on. If she wakes up and the light is on, she can come out of her room. We discussed this for a full day, quizzing her repeatedly on what she should do.
It seemed too easy to actually work, but miraculously, it did. And then it worked again. And over and over again. I actually held off sharing this idea to ensure that our success wasn’t a one-hit wonder, but I am happy to report that I am writing to you from a more well-rested point of view. Sometimes we hear her squeal with excitement when her light comes on and she can come out of her room, but more often than not she puts herself back to sleep and the soft lamp light turning on is not enough to wake her up when it switches on. I realize this may not be a golden ticket for everyone, but surely something to trial before committing to something more expensive!
Tip: If your child has been getting up at 5:30am, you probably won’t have success jumping that alarm clock straight to 7am. Try incremental changes (15 or 30 minutes) as their patience in “waiting for the light to come on” will not extend for two hours.
Sweet dreams!
This is such a great idea! We were just talking about getting one of those kid clocks…this is a much simpler and less expensive solution.
Awesome!!! I am so trying this. I *think* I might have one of these around the house too.
I clearly have one of these! She unfortunately can reach the light switch and knows how to use it all to well! Plus doesn’t yet understand the concept of staying in bed until it is light out. Argh… Luckily the baby gate keeps her in her room, lol! Gotta love kids!
I love it! I love it! I love it!
I’ll be sure to test it out. Thanks for the awesome idea.
Tucking this idea away for sure!
When Gabby was around 4 1/2 she started getting up around 5ish instead of her usual 6am wake up time. We didn’t think of the lamp on a timer, which is brilliant by the way, but we did let her pick out a digital alarm clock and told her she can’t come out of her room until there is a 6 or 7 as the first number on her clock.. She never holds out until 7am, but at least it’s not 5:15 anymore!
Love this idea!
Great idea! I guess now I know what I have to look forward to with my toddler ; )
We used a “Good Morning Lamp” with our oldest child when she was a toddler. Worked like a charm!
Brilliant idea!! How old is your child who you used this with? My 23 month old consistently gets up between 4:30 and 5:30am. And given that I’m also up a few times a night to breastfeed our 5 month old, it’s just killing. I’m not sure he’s old enough to understand the explanation just yet, but am going to try this to see if he just starts to understand that I come when the light is on – by using incremental increases, like you suggested.
My daughter was 27 months when we started doing this, though I think she could have figured it out earlier (if I would have thought of it by then!) We do a lot of question and answer around here to ensure that she gets what we’re saying, so we ‘quizzed’ her every night at bedtime for the first couple of weeks until it was a habit. (‘quizzing’ = “When can you get out of bed?” “What happens if you wake up and your light is on?”)
I wanted to come back on here and share what a huge difference this has made our lives!!! My son has a sensory processing disorder and not only would he wake every day at 4:30 and be unable to fall asleep. He’d also be a screaming, tantruming mess. Not only has this helped him to sleep until 6:30 every morning. But he also now wakes up super happy. I cannot even describe how much more pleasant mornings in our house have become. Thanks so much for sharing this. I hope you don’t mind me also sharing it on my own blog (referring back to yours, of course).